


Sepulcher

by thepinkpeg



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Coran (Voltron)-centric, Gen, The Castle of Lions, how did the Castle get to Arus?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 16:14:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepinkpeg/pseuds/thepinkpeg
Summary: Arus: a peaceful planet, far from the reach of the Galra, far from Altea. A perfect haven for the Black Lion and two Alteans frozen in cryogenic sleep.The Castle of Lions would be safe there, but first it had to make the journey.That journey would require sacrifice.





	Sepulcher

“Without someone of royal blood, we have only the smallest amount of residual essence to open a short wormhole. It's enough to get us far away from Altea, but not far enough.” She turned, lips pressed in a grim line.

“We’ll have to pilot the Castle ourselves for several galaxies- _while_ staying out of sight from the Galra.” He warns her.

“Use it.”  
  
“What about King Alfor? He could have survived the attack.”  
  
She shook her head. “In that case he will have this ship’s signature and can use a teludav to find us. I’m sorry, but we have to leave.”  
  
“We can't possibly survive that long!”

“Well…” She looks away. “We’ll have to teach our children then.”  
  
“You want me to live my life in this ship! All of us?!”  
  
“We have no choice! This is the final order of our king. If you choose to abandon _his will_ you have one dobash to leave this castle!”  
  
“I ... You’re right. Forgive me, Commander.”  
  
“Very well then. Let's fire engines.”

 

* * *

 

Coran walks in near darkness, every odd light sputters out a dim glow as he passes. His feet hit the floor with faint echoes, they give the impression of another person trailing his steps.

He goes door to door. Each chamber is a bedroom, no personal items adorn them, no supplies within their walls, besides a mattress. They all appear in the same fashion, but he must check them all.

He listens for life, ears rising and falling at each door and every turn.

_“This place is like a labyrinth!” The Green Paladin had said when Allura was on bed rest.  She persuaded the others to explore with her, playing to their desire for adventure._

_At their words of agreement Coran had tensed, flicking his fingers together at his side. Should he stay at the Princess's side, or supervise their wandering? He hadn’t yet had time to search all of the Castle’s many rooms… they may find things not meant for their eyes. Things he hoped the lions stayed tight lipped about._

_Duty to Princess Allura weighed at him, and his gaze flickered to hers. She met his eyes from her bed. She shook her head, subtle and slow._

_He nodded, grateful for the instruction. “Well, Princess Allura could use a bit of quiet, I’ll explain the Castle’s history on the way,” he chimed in. “It was built by grandfather, you know!”_

_They bid the princess good rest and Pidge was on her way, bounding down the halls with Lance and Hunk in tow. Keith stayed by Shiro’s side, and Coran walked with them, pace brisk to keep watch on the younger Paladins. Coran knew one day they would have questions on the nature of the Castle, how its halls could fit such an abundance of residents, a city of people, a capital even…_

… _full and alive with shining smiles, laughter and vibrant, festive colours amidst the blossoms…_

_Lance slapped his hand on the first access panel they found. A supplies closet. Sheets and towels were the only items stocked on the shelves. Thankfully there were only a few murmurs of_ _disappointment before the door was shut once more._

_Coran was grateful they thought the amount of laundry to be acceptable. He hoped they weren’t keeping count of the number of cupboards that held the same supplies, the risk of them asking_ _why_ _there were_ so many _sheets rose with every cupboard they found, but no such question came._

_At the first intersection, Coran intercepted, “There’s a reading room down this hall that you may be interested in,” he offered. Pidge nodded and he lead them to the right. He hadn’t been down the left hall._

_The ‘adventure’ had carried on for a whole varga before they grew bored._

_“This place is enormous!” Lance whined, “and most of it’s just boring stuff!”_

_“We haven’t been to a quarter of it!” Pidge argued._

_“Oh, I think Lance is correct, it will take many more hours to search the Castle, it’s quite a magnificent piece of architecture! We’ll find time to look in small intervals. Besides, I think it’s near time for dinner,” he smiled warmly, twirling the red hair of his mustache._

_She considered his logic, then sighed, “Yeah, you’re right.”_

_“Help me cook?” Hunk offered._

_Pidge wrinkled her nose, “Okay,” she lamented after a moment. “Let’s go.”_

_Coran walked them to the kitchens then left them to their own devices. A check on Allura later and he was back in the bowels of the Castle._

_With the Paladins impromptu exploring, he would need to be far more speedy in his searching._

He pries open a door that’s gone sticky. He scans the room, searching every surface. All the drawers are empty, same as the last.

It’s well into the night, when the Paladins are all in their respective quarters, that Coran finds mattresses with slight indents. All the sheets and pillows are gone, all the cupboards empty, same as the floors above. But there, in the center of the bed, lies the ghost of a person’s body, pressed to the sheets at night.

Coran undoes the bolts at the corners and flips the mattress. The other side is pristine, if a bit musty, but that’s okay. He rescrews the bolts and does the same to the next two hundred rooms. Some have smaller, fainter creases, from lighter bodies. Coran has to swallow around a painful knot in his throat in those rooms.

He works till dawn, and as the hours wear on, the weight in his heart grows heavier. A ghostly loneliness stays with him on his journey up to the occupied floors. He wants to watch the video logs that he _knows_ the Castle has, but the Paladins’ curiosity is priority one. When not cleaning or repairing, searching _must_ be put first. Even if it leaves him burning with an odd concoction of hope, dread, guilt and regret.

He whips up a royal Altean breakfast for Allura. She’s grateful, as her strength returns, so does her wish for entertainment. She is growing steadily bored with bedrest. Coran wishes he could stay by her side, but he must finish searching.

Pidge does a bit of exploring with Hunk, but Coran went deep last night, and leaves them to wander the halls alone.

That night, Coran sleeps. The next day will be a search day, tonight he would recharge and reflect.

 

* * *

 

He finds the Castle’s second kitchen. The cupboards are empty. Although, there is a sticky treat stuck to one back panel that Coran cleans.

He takes the elevator down to the twenty first floor, he searches two lounges. Empty.

At the trash disposal room, Coran takes time to enter the passwords and scans it briefly. But any old garbage or possessions are now long gone, and he locks up the area securely again.

A recreation room, empty. A communal bathroom, which Coran spends a day cleaning and repairing.

These living floors are deep in the Castle, the only things below it are several more bedrooms, a couple of workshop floors and then the hangars.

He will search from hangar up for the bedrooms, should Pidge or another curious Paladin explore from there.

After Pidge and Hunk’s little adventure, they regale their boring tale of exploration over breakfast. Then, Hunk asks a question Coran has flagged with caution.

“How is our kitchen even functional? Wouldn’t it wear down over ten thousand years?

Coran immediately tenses, it feels like bait after his day’s activities. But Hunk didn’t say anything about a second kitchen. _He doesn’t know._

Allura opens her mouth, but Coran rushes to hush her, the promise he drilled into his brain, knows that there is nothing he can do but lie. Completely and utterly lie to them, because he can’t tell them the truth. And he knows he’s damning himself if they ever do find out- their trust will be shattered. But he cannot. So all there is, is hope that they never learn, never know.

“The Altean technology on this ship is very advanced. The appliances here will not decrease their quality with age.”

Allura bites her cheek at Coran’s lie, and says nothing.

Hunk shrugs. “I guess that makes sense.” He appears disappointed, but as intended the conversation takes a new direction.

Coran struggles with his meal, guilt twists in his stomach and he wants to hide himself away, sit alone and wallow in the hole he’s dug himself, and ignore that he’s dragging Allura down with him.

She would have told them.

 

* * *

 

Coran travels down to the hangar the next night. It’s unlikely there are things down here that require searching, but he decides to look through the _entire_ Castle, to satisfy the aching need in his mind to be _sure_.

He takes the elevator down to the Red Lion’s hangar. It’s the Lion he’s most familiar with. He hopes it will not mind his passing through.

The hangar is dark, and by entering through a maintenance door, the lights don’t automatically turn on for him. He doesn’t bother finding the control panel. Instead he uses the torch he started to bring with him after the lights faltered and refused to function deep in the center of the Castle.

In the near darkness the Red Lion appears gray.

Coran crosses the hangar to the small storage unit. A few weapons, and several Altean engineering tools are in there. As well as three battle helmets. He’s just closing the door when a thunderous whirring fills the room. He stills.

Yellow light washes over the cupboard and Coran’s shadow paints itself on the doors.

He turns his head very slowly, the Red Lion has rotated its head to stare at him.

Its gaze feels knowing, and Coran feels a creeping up his arms at the thought of it understanding his intentions down here.

He turns to face it fully. Gazing directly into its great yellow eyes. The Lion stares a moment longer, then turns its mammoth head away. Gears screeching and grinding until there is silence. Coran’s torch light appears dim after the brightness of the Lion’s stare.

Coran opens his mouth to say something, then thinks better and closes it.   

He leaves the hangar, keeping eyes on the Lion at all times, but it doesn’t move again.

The hangar closets all have similar supplies, and there’s nothing for him to clean. The other Lions do not respond to his prying in their spaces, but Coran stays and stares at the Black Lion longer than he should. It had rested here, all this time. He wonders if it listened, awake and aware for ten thousand years. Or did it sleep, as he and Allura had?

Despite the time he spends there, watching, the great beast doesn’t respond, and eventually duty leads Coran out of the hangar.

The workstations are all clear, as expected. So is the floor of bedrooms above, and the next, and the next.

However, five floors later, with seven still to search, Coran is thankful he began the tedious task in the first place, and also regretful that he ever had the need to.

In this bedroom, there is not only a dent in the mattress, but a flowing pink formal Altean dress splayed over the sheets. With an Altean skeleton still inside it.

Coran’s breath shudders when he exhales. He leaves the room in haste and marks it on his map.

Thoroughly perturbed he checks the other rooms on this floor, his mind numb with horror. He flips more mattresses, but nothing else is to be found.

Coran returns to their main area for supplies. He cautiously collects what he needs, taking care not to alert the others.

When he re-enters the chamber he shines his torch over the face of the skeleton. Dust coats every surface of the bone, and the pink frock would appear gray to most.

_Like the Lion_. He can’t help but think.

With gentle care, and dismay at having to move the dead from their final resting place, Coran pinches the ends of the stiff sheet beneath her, folding them over her bones. After a moment to compose himself, he lifts the ends of the sheet.

A hollow rattle fills the silence in the room

Coran’s eyes crease in sadness, and he carries the bundle away into the dark halls of the Castle.  

The incinerator off the main energy core devours the brittle skeleton. The dust, fabric and bone meld together, and burn out into ashes, hidden from sight beneath the blaze. _Stardust, once again,_ Pop-Pop would have said.

Coran rests on the floor of a hallway, his heart heavy. It’s an immense weight on the soul, he thinks, to mourn one’s entire race. A lifetime of memories, and many more that could have come. Blown to pieces by _Zarkon._

A firm growl whips down the hall, like a wild wind. Coran picks his head up.

Stunned, he walks in a trance to the hangars. When he enters the Red Lion’s bay, the great beast shifts its head, dipping it down to him with a low rumble.

Coran tilts his head, gazing in wonder at the creature King Alfor helped build. A vessel, by all means, but where did the _life_ inside it come from?   

The Red Lion lifts its head with another rumble, almost like a purr. Coran watches as its gaze shifts to the ceiling before it stills in the position it had held when he’d entered.

Coran stays another moment, watching the Lion in wonder. He turns to leave, at the door he glances over his shoulder at the Lion. Just as still as those bones, yet so alive with quintessence. He remembers King Alfor’s final ask of him, to look after his Princess.

_“Please, Coran, someone must be with her when she wakes. I ask you as your friend, not your leader. The others, they will maintain the Castle of Lions until you awaken.”_

_There had been so few aboard. Coran had doubted King Alfor in that moment. But he did as he asked of him. The people aboard the ship that day were ruined in grief as they piloted the Castle away from Altea. War didn’t wait for goodbyes._

_Some were furious, distraught at the destruction of their home. Coran expected them to wake him from his sleep, but as he stepped into the chamber, anger didn’t lie in the mournful eyes that watched him._

_For a moment, fear flickered in him, as his onlookers so openly pitied his fate. Then the cold washed over him._

Coran leaves the hangars, and returns to the dusted tomb of the last survivor.  

He cleans the room, any evidence of life is thrown into the incinerator. Guilt plagues Coran as he works, he feels he should tell Allura of his deeds. But Commander Hira had requested this one thing of him. As the last will of a women who gave her life in protection of the Castle of Lions, and the sleeping lifeforms within it, Coran felt compelled to promise this final task would be completed, even if it pained him to burn away the few surviving remnants of his home.

_“Please,” she looked him in the eye. “We will clear our own dead, but when the time comes- you know it will,” she said against his protest, “you will both awaken alone. I ask that you clear what we could not. What… remains…” she finished._

_“I swear,” he said._

A day later, Coran had been frozen in sleep, one movement after Altea’s destruction. Life long plans were laid out for the ship’s inhabitants. And Coran was to join Allura in slumber as the crew lived out their lives on the ship.

Coran thinks he now understands the pitying looks. No one entered the remaining pods. They chose to live on the ship; die on the ship. And Coran was left alone with the Princess when the time came ten thousand years later. They were still at war, nothing had changed for the better, just as Commander Hira suspected. The crew had wanted no part in this war.

That day, at last Coran finishes his searching. The Castle is pristine, for now, and it’s a feeling Coran allows himself a moment to relish in.   

Later that night, Coran brings the old logs to his quarters.

He watches generation after generation state their name, title, how far from Arus they are, crystal status- the major concern of every one of them. Some confess they don’t think they’ll make it to Arus.   

Each one wears pink.  

The last log is done by a woman in a pink frock. She is young, and her cheeks are hollow.

She confesses to the log that her brother died many movements ago. She has been alone. Populations hadn’t thrived as hoped on the Castle, and an explosion had diminished their numbers greatly. Too greatly.

She tells the camera that she has scouted nearby on Arus, and warned a local tribe of the Castle. She sealed all possible entrances to the Castle. “Only the Blue Lion will be able to access it now,” she says.

She looks at the bridge around her. “It’s strange,” she says, “to have completed this mission. It’s been my life...” She shakes her head, refocusing. “I’m going to run last minute system checks, food storage, power and such. The most important thing is that energy goes to the pods. They need to stay alive, and there must be oxygen and food when they awaken.” She smiles. “That’s what Mama always said.”  

Coran thinks of the great bridge built before the Castle’s entrance and the carvings in its stone. He wonders if Alfor had put more effort into securing a host planet for them than he’d originally thought. Had his king contacted the inhabitants here? Had he asked for refuge and safe shelter? Had he merely manipulated them? Now, he thinks, somber, he’ll never know King Alfor’s intentions.

The girl in the feed plays with something, a package or box of sorts in her hands,

“I’m going to go take this now.” She says, “my brother told me that Coran, the man in Cryo sleep, will care for the Castle after us. After... me,” she murmurs. “We were always told that when he wakes, and cleans what we left behind, that our mission will finally be over.”

The video clicks. The ending is abrupt, and Coran finds himself dissatisfied. He stares at the blank screen and rubs his eyes, tired and weak with grief.  He lays down, weary and numb with everything he’s lost. Sleep comes slowly to him, but he rests well, having finally completed this last task.

His search.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally an alternate reality fic written back when S3 aired, when I thought alternate realities would be a major plot point. lol.  
> Somehow it became a take on how the Castle could have gotten to Arus. With lots of Coran, naturally. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> You can find me on [tumblr.](https://thepinkpeg.tumblr.com)


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